•^^^I'HEODORE ROOSEVELT 

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 




JTove of country is an elemental virtue, 
like love of home, or li^e honesty or courage 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



A 



V 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

zA 'Biographical Sketch 




Copyright, Undervi-ood & Underwood :^tudios, New York 



Theodore Roosevelt 
1858-1919 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

<lA ^iog?^aphical Sketch 
Hermann Hagedorn 

^Author of 
The 'Boys' Life of Theodore Roosevelt 



PRIVATELY PRINTED 

ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL EXHIBITION COMMITTEE 

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 

I919 






Copyright i 91 9 by Hermann Hagedorn 

"_y/// riir/irs reset Ted 
PUBLISHED MAY, I9I9 






The Marchbanks Press 
New York 



ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL EXHIBITION 

HELD IN AVERY LIBRARY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 

MAY TENTH TO JUNE FOURTH, NINETEEN-NINETEEN, UNDER 

THE AUSPICES OF COLUMBIA HOUSE, TO PAY A TRIBUTE OF 

HONOR TO THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF A GREAT AMERICAN 

AND, BY ILLUSTRATING HIS STRAIGHT AMERICANISM 

FITTINGLY TO MARK THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 

COLUMBIA HOUSE BY THE TRUSTEES OF 

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY AS A 

CENTRE FOR EDUCATION 

IN CITIZENSHIP 



r 



%oosevelt ChCemor'uil Exhibition 
Committee 

VV. A. Braun, Chairman 
Frederic R. Coudert, Treasurer 
J. R. Crawford, Secretary 
Carl Akeley Hermann Hagedorn 

Joseph B. Bishop Otto H. Kahn 

William A. Boring William Loeb, Jr. 

Nicholas Murray Butler Clarence H. Mackay 
George B. Cortelyou William Fellowes Morgan 

John J. Coss George Haven Putnam 

Frederick Coykendall Walter A. Sherwood 



PATRONS 



Edward D. Adams 
Samuel P. Avery 
Stephen Baker 
George E. Brewer 
Theodore E. Burton 
James Byrne 
Andrew Carnegie 
Hilary R. Chambers 
John J. Chapman 
William Hamlin Childs 
Mabel Choate 
James C. Colgate 
Paul D. Cravath 
Gherardi Davis 
Cleveland H. Dodge 
Francis Phelps Dodge 
Walter Douglas 
Coleman du Pont 
Thomas A. Edison 
Ralph N. Ellis 
Henry Evans 
Hamlin Garland 
Elbert H. Gary 
John C. Greenway 
George Harvey 



A. Barton Hepburn 
Elon H. Hooker 
Charles E. Hughes 
Walter B. James 
Helen Hartley Jenkins 
Frederic B. Jennings 
Oliver G. Jennings 
Walter Jennings 
Irwin R. Kirkwood 
George F. Kunz 
Alexander Lambert 
Francis G. Landon 
Woodbury G. Langdon* 
Adolph Lewisohn 
Edward de P. Livingston 
Henry Cabot Lodge 
L. F. Loree 
Alfred E. Marling 
Robert Maxwell 
Alfred Meyer 
Albert G. Milbank 
George Norton Miller 
John Mitchell 
Franklin Murphy 
William H. Nichols 



William Church Osborn 
Eugene H. Outerbridge 
Edward C. Parish 
George VV. Perkins 
William H. Porter 
John T. Pratt 
John H. Prentice 
W.Willis Reese 
John H. Richards 
John J. Riker 
Elihu Root 
Thomas F. Ryan 
Herbert L. Satterlee 
Jacob H. Schiff 
Mortimer L. Schiff 
Charles Scribner 
Albert Shaw 
Edward W. Sheldon 



FiNLEY ShEPARD 

H. F. Sinclair 
Benson B. Sloan 
Dorothy W. Straight 
Percy S. Straus 
Henry W. Taft 
William BoyceThompson 
Robert Thorne 
Rodman Wanamak.er 
Felix M. Warburg 
David Warfield 
John I. Waterbury 
George P. Wetmore 
George W. Wickersham 
Albert H. Wiggin 
Grenville L. Winthrop 
J. Walter Wood 
Leonard Wood 



DEDICATION 

J~J. E \cijs found fiiitJiful over a few things ivui 
lie was //Id tie /iile/- ove/- ///a/iy; he cut his ow/i t/uiil 
ch'd// and st/-iiight a/id //liUious followed hi/// towui'd 
the light :: He Ipphs frciil; he ///ade hi ///self a tower 
of stre//gth. He \->as ti///id; he ///iide hi ///self a lio/i 
of courage. He^vas a d/'ea///er; he beca/ue o/ie of the 
great doers of all ti///e :: z^YCen put their t/nst i/i 
hi///; ')vo///e// fou//d a c ha ///pi on iu hi///; l{i/igs stood 
i// awe of hi///, hut child/r// ///ade hi/// their play- 
///ate :: He broke a /latio/i s slu///ber ^vith his cry, 
and It /-ose up. He touched the eyes of blind ///e/i 
1^1 th a fa/ue a//d gave then/ ^dsio/i. Souls becan/e 
swords tli/-ougli liin/; swords beca///e se/-va//ts of 
(^od :: He '\vas loyal to his cou//t/y and he exaBed 
loyalty; he loved /n a //y la//ds, but he loved his own 
land best :: He was terrible in battle, but tender 
to the ypeak; joyous and tireless, bei//g free f/'o/n 
self-pity; clea// yvitli a cleanness that clea//sed the 
air like a gale :: His cowtesy knew no health, no 



class; his friendship, no creed or color or race. His 
courage stood every onslaught of savage beast and 
ruthless man, of loneliness, of Victory, of defeat. His 
mind Ippas eager, his heart ^pas true, his body and 
spirit, def ant of obstacles, ready to meet Ipphat might 
come :: He fought injustice and tyranny; bore sor- 
row gallantly; loved all nature, bleak^^ spaces and 
hardy companions, luv^irdous adventure and the z^st 
of battle. Wherever he went he carried his own 
pacl{; and in the uttermost parts of the earth he kept 
his conscience for his guide. 



RESOLUTIONS 

ADOPTED BY THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF 

THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

<iA 'Biographical Sketch 
I 



[TTr^HEODORE ROOSEVELT, twenty-sixth 
I President of the United States, was born 
Jl at 28 East 20th Street, New York City, 
on October 27, 1858. His father, Theodore Roose- 
velt, was a glass merchant, a figure in city affairs, 
a philanthropist widely respected and beloved; 
his mother, Martha Bulloch, was a woman of 
unusual beauty and charm, of cool good sense 
and passionate devotions. His father was the de- 
scendant of a long line of Dutch burghers who 
had been prominent in the government of their 
city for over two hundred years; his mother was 
a Southerner of Scotch blood, mingled with Irish 
anci Huguenot-French and an infusion of Ger- 
man from the Rhine Palatinate. Both were aris- 
tocrats by lineage and the higher right of spir- 
itual nobility. The Civil War, breaking upon 
them when Theodore the Younger was two and 
a half years old, turned the sympathy of one to 
the North; that of the other, with equal ardor, to 
the South; but it did not cloud the affection they 

[1,3] 



held for each other or the happiness of their home. 

Theodore the Younger was, from his birth, a 
frail boy, who suffered much from asthma and 
other bodily ailments. For weeks on end he was 
forced to keep to his bed, and the rough-and- 
tumble of boyhood was during his early years 
altogether withheld from him. He learned to 
read while he was still in skirts, and before he 
was out of the nursery age books had become 
companions to him and comforters in pain. 
His sisters, his brother and their friends were 
his devoted followers, who found the stories he 
told them, hour after hour, altogether thrilling. 

He went to school for a brief period at Pro- 
fessor McMullen's Academy, near Madison 
Square, but his health permitted him no regular 
schooling, and tutors and governesses gave him 
an uneven elementary education, which he ex- 
tended and deepened by wide reading of heroic 
tales and natural history, of science and biogra- 
phy. When he was nine he was taken through 
Europe, but, to judge from the journal he kept, 
gained nothing from it except a small boy's 
spread-eagle homesickness for his own land. 
Rome, Paris, Vesuvius and the Trossachs were 
alike a bore to him. Another trip to Europe four 
years later opened his eyes. He had by that time 
become an ardent naturalist, and Egypt and the 
Continent were interesting for their birds, if not 
for their monuments. He spent a winter in a Ger- 

[14] 



man family in Dresden and returned to America 
with an understanding of foreign lands which 
served to give him a real appreciation of his own. 
Still handicapped by his physical frailness, he 
prepared himself for college. 

Meanwhile, he had acquired certain ideals of 
life and conduct which exercised a deep influence 
on his character. He was a notable hero-worship- 
per, with his father as his greatest hero then as 
always, and behind him the company of the 
heroic dead, who had become familiar to him 
through books. He measured himself by them, 
found himself wanting both in courage and phys- 
ical strength, and doggedly set to work to repair 
the defects. He took boxing lessons, and exer- 
cised with a persistence that did not abate, in the 
gymnasium his father installed for him. The 
world of outdoors was a source of delight and 
adventure. His boy's love for birds and insects 
developed into the scientist's ardor for solid 
knowledge. When he went to college in the 
autumn of 1876, it was with the determination 
to become a faunal naturalist. 

His years at Harvard were years of growth 
and joyous companionship. He studied hard, he 
read widely and deeply, he plunged into a dozen 
different undergraduate activities, from boxing 
and fencing and football to acting and writing 
and Sunday-school teaching and discussion of 
art at Professor Charles Eliot Norton's. He 

[■5} 



romped one day, he wrote history the next; he 
made many friends; he gained a few devoted fol- 
lowers who prophesied great things for him; 
meanwhile, he grew in body and mind. 

He graduated in June, 1880. Shortly after, he 
married Alice Lee of Chestnut Hill, who had 
been the radiant center of the group of boys and 
girls with whom he had "run" during his Har- 
vard years. They went to Europe, where Theo- 
dore Roosevelt climbed the Matterhorn for no 
particular reason except that a pair of English- 
men with whom he had talked seemed to think 
that they were the only ones who had ever 
climbed it or ever would; and returned to Amer- 
ica, more ardently American than ever, and set- 
tled in New York. 

He had long given up his intention of becom- 
ing a naturalist, without, however, being able to 
decide what he would become. With no great 
enthusiasm for the law, he entered the Columbia 
Law School and, at the same time, the law office 
of his uncle, Robert Roosevelt. Meanwhile he 
completed a history of "The Naval War of 1 8 1 2" 
which he had begun in college, looked about in 
the political world of his native city, and joined 
the Republican Club of the Twenty-first Assem- 
bly District. 

He became a factor, if not a power, there at 
once, and on the initiative of a shrewd, keen- 
witted Irishman named "Joe" Murray, a local 

[16] 



"boss," was nominated for the Assembly within 
a year, and elected. 

In Albany he sprang almost at once into lead- 
ership. Before his first term was over he was a 
national figure, at the end of his third he was a 
force to be reckoned with in the Republican 
Party, head of his State delegation to the 
National Convention, the hero of young men, 
the hope of all who were working for the triumph 
of the better elements in American politics. He 
gained his first fame through a fearless attack on 
a corrupt judge whom the leaders of his own 
party were seeking to shelter; but the real con- 
fidence of the public he won by solid and per- 
sistent work against odds for honest government 
and progressive legislation. 

A personal catastrophe cut off completely and, 
it seemed forever, his political career. In Febru- 
ary, 1884, his mother died suddenly. The same 
night his daughter Alice was born, and twelve 
hours later his wife died. He finished his term in 
the Assembly, did what he could to nominate 
the man of his choice at the Republican Con- 
vention in Chicago, failed, and hid himself, dis- 
heartened, on the ranch he had purchased the 
preceding autumn on the banks of the Little 
Missouri River, in Dakota. 



[17] 







u 
< 

Is 
o 

X 



F 



II 



"^OR the two years or more that followed, 
the gay world of New York City, and that 
other complex and tumultuous world of 
politics through which he had passed like a cy- 
clone, saw Theodore Roosevelt only for hurried 
glimpses, if at all. He had altogether resigned 
whatever political ambitions he might have had. 
He wanted to write; and he did write an enter- 
taining book of hunter's tales, a fresh and au- 
thoritative biography of Thomas H. Benton, an- 
other of Gouverneur Morris, a volume concern- 
ing ranch-life; but these were incidental. He had 
bought a great herd of cattle, he had called to 
his side from Maine a pair of old friends and 
stalwart backwoodsmen named "Bill" Sewall 
and Will Dow; with them he had built a house 
which he called Elkhorn; and he was now a 
ranchman whose life was bounded by the circle 
of cares and wholesome hardships and pleasures 
and perils that make up a ranchman's days. 
The bleak and savage country and the primitive 
conditions of life fascinated his imagination; the 
hardy men who were his companions gripped his 
affections and held them. The "women-folk" in 
Maine joined their husbands and took charge of 

[19] 



Elkhorn, and for two years made a home where 
the days passed in a round of manly endeavor 
and simple-hearted fellowship that in the mem- 
ory of all who were a part of it lingered as a kind 
of pastoral idyll. 

Working on the round-up, riding for days on 
end after stray cattle, hunting over the bare 
prairies and up the ragged peaks, Theodore 
Roosevelt won at last the strength of body he 
had set out to gain fifteen years before. He won 
much else — an understanding of the common 
man and of the West, a deeper appreciation of 
the meaning of democracy, a revived interest in 
life. His career as a ranchman came to an end in 
the autumn of 1886, when he went East to ac- 
cept the Republican nomination for Mayor of 
New York. 

He ran against Abram S. Hewitt, the Tam- 
many nominee, and Henry George, the candidate 
of a short-lived United Labor Party, and was 
disastrously defeated in spite of a lively cam- 
paign. He went to Europe, and in London mar- 
ried the friend of his childhood, Edith Kermit 
Carow. 

He returned with his wife to America the fol- 
lowing Spring and moved into the new house on 
Sagamore Hill which he had set about to build 
before his departure. There he gave himself to 
the writing of books, notably "The Winning of 
the West," a history of the frontier, which was 

[20] 



to be his greatest book. A Republican victory in 
1888, however, brought him again into pubHc 
affairs. He was appointed a member of the U. S. 
Civil Service Commission in Washington, and 
for six years thereafter fought the battle of civil 
service reform against the corrupt or foolish ad- 
vocates of favoritism who still affirmed that "to 
the victor belong the spoils." It was a perilous 
position for a public man with political ambi- 
tions, for the work of the Civil Service Commis- 
sion was unpopular with the leaders of both 
parties and to administer it ably meant to an- 
tagonize the most powerful forces in Congress. 
Roosevelt carried the fight into the very Cabinet 
of the Republican President, and even while he 
drew the fire of the spoilsmen won the quick 
applause of men near and far who admired cour- 
age and skill in combat. 

A reform victory in New York City in the 
autumrf of 1894 brought him, six months later, 
again to the city of his birth as President of the 
Police Board. The police department of the city 
was demoralized, favoritism and corruption were 
rampant, laws were unequally enforced, and vice 
and crime flourished openly to the scandal of 
respectable citizens, who were helpless it seemed 
to cope with the forces of disorder. Into these 
Augean stables Theodore Roosevelt courageously 
turned the flood of his turbulent energy and 
cleansing love of justice. He abolished at once 



the system of admission and promotion by pay 
or influence; he stood by his men when influen- 
tial wrong-doers attempted to discredit them for 
doing their duty. Within six months he had put 
new spirit into the force and brought the law 
once more into repute. But in so doing he had 
stirred the anger of the politicians of both par- 
ties and of all the sinister forces which depended 
for their livelihood on vice and crime. His mo- 
tives were misrepresented, his methods were 
ridiculed, until even the orderly elements, whose 
battle he was fighting, turned upon him. The 
newspapers attacked him savagely; even his col- 
leagues on the Police Board thwarted him where 
they could. 

"It is a grimy struggle, but a vital one," he 
wrote at the time in a letter to one of his sisters. 
"The battle for decent government must be won 
by just such interminable, grimy drudgery." 



[^^] 



Ill 

INTO the tumult of his work on the Pohce 
Board came the rumors of impending war. 
Theodore Roosevelt believed with all his 
heart that Cuba should be freed from the in- 
tolerable yoke of Spain. He believed that only 
through the intervention of the United States 
could Cuba be thus freed. He had, ever since 
leaving college, preached national preparedness 
for war, demanding in particular the creation of 
an effective navy. When William McKinley, 
therefore, was elected President in the autumn 
of 1896, and offered Roosevelt the position of 
Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he accepted it 
with frank delight. He became in the Navy De- 
partment what he had been on the Civil Service 
Commission and the Police Board, the moving 
spirit of the organization. His superior, Secre- 
tary Long, was by inclination a pacifist who 
looked with distrust and some terror on Roose- 
velt's endeavors to make the navy into a vig- 
orous fighting force. Roosevelt utilized the briet 
periods when he was Acting Secretary during 
his chief's absence to carry forward the policy 
which he deemed essential to the national safety. 
It was by such almost surreptitious action that 




(. p\ r ght L id r d iV Underuood btiuiios, Ne« \ ork 



After the Battle of Las Guasimas 



General Joseph Wheeler, in the foreground. Commander of the left 
wing of the Army before San Juan Hill. From left to right: Major 
George M. Dunn, Major Brodie, Chaplain Brown, Colonel 
Leonard Wood and Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. 



Dewey was provided with the coal and the ships 
which ultimately enabled him to destroy the 
Spanish fleet at Manila. When the war came in 
April, 1898, he immediately resigned his position 
and offered his services to the President in rais- 
ing the cavalry regiments which Congress author- 
ized. General Alger, Secretary of War, offered 
him the colonelcy of one of these regiments. He 
refused, asking that the regiment be given to his 
friend Leonard W^ood, a veteran of the Indian 
wars and at that time a surgeon in the army, 
with himself as lieutenant-colonel. The offer was 
accepted. Early in May the Rough Riders, as 
they were nicknamed, began to gather from all 
parts of the country, at San Antonio, Texas. 
The training was brief but thorough. Six weeks 
after the regiment was organized, it stood trained 
and equipped on the firing line outside of San- 
tiago de Cuba. 

The Rough Riders came under fire for the 
first time late in June, at Las Guasimas, where 
Roosevelt commanded first the center and later 
also the left wing. He revealed himself there as a 
brave soldier and an ofiicer of calm judgment 
and qualities of leadership altogether unusual. 
. The battle of San Juan Hill was fought a week 
after the engagement at Las Guasimas. It was a 
small but most sanguinary battle in which, ow- 
ing to the inefficiency and blundering of the 
commanding general, the American casualties 



were altogether out of proportion to the numbers 
engaged. The day before the battle Colonel Wood 
had been promoted to Brigadier General and 
Roosevelt had been given command of the regi- 
ment. All day, waiting for orders that did not 
come, he lay with his men under the galling fire 
of Spanish guns. One messenger after another 
whom he sent for orders was killed. At last, late 
in the afternoon, the command came to advance. 
He dashed forward, conspicuous on his white 
horse, plunged through the line of regulars who 
were obstructing his path, and led his men 
through the tall grass up the long hill. To right 
and left of him men fell, and the Mauser bullets 
sang with the sound of ripping silk past his ears. 
He remained untouched. At a barbed wire fence 
he sprang off his horse and plunged on, his men 
close at his heels. He gained the first crest, push- 
ing the Spaniards back; then another, and a 
third. Inspired by his cool courage the American 
line advanced along the whole San Juan range. 
At dusk the Spaniards were in full retreat on the 
city. 

Roosevelt returned home a popular hero. The 
Republicans of New York State, facing defeat, 
recognized that in Roosevelt lay their only hope. 
He was nominated for Governor that autumn, 
and after a hot and close campaign was elected. 

At Albany Roosevelt revealed himself almost 
at once as an able administrator, a clear-sighted 

[26} 



judge of men and a politician of tact, skill and 
unswerving integrity. His own party machine 
was distrustful of him as a reformer who had 
said many harci things about party machines in 
the past and who had handled neither the Demo- 
cratic nor the Republican organization with 
gloves during his battles as Police Commissioner. 
Roosevelt recognized that though the Republi- 
can machine under its leader, Senator Piatt, 
might not be the ideal instrument through which 
he would choose to work if he could make a 
choice, it was a force with which he must deal 
if he wished to put on the statute books any pro- 
gressive legislation at all. The machine domi- 
nated the Legislature and had the power com- 
pletely to block the Governor if it so desired. 
Roosevelt, realizing that the Republican organi- 
zation, however imperfect in itself, might be 
made the instrument of good if rightly handled, 
managed by tact and cajolery and sundry break- 
fasts with Senator Piatt whenever affairs be- 
came stormy, to gain the support of the Assem- 
bly and Senate for appointments and legislative 
measures which the Republican members of that 
body would never have dreamed of passing if 
Roosevelt had endeavored to swing the "big 
stick." More than once the issues were sharply 
drawn and there was a clash that threatened to 
disrupt the Republican Party. But in every case 
Roosevelt's willingness to make concessions on 



inessentials and his evident determination to 
stand firm as a rock on principles, averted what 
seemed inevitable disaster. 

Roosevelt had meanwhile become the acknowl- 
edged leader of the progressive elements in 
American politics. His second annual message 
as Governor, delivered in January, 1900, strik- 
ingly revealed his imaginative grasp of the prob- 
lems confronting the nation. A movement to 
make him candidate for Vice-President on the 
Republican ticket was started simultaneously 
among his political enemies in the East, who 
wished to shelve him, and his devoted followers 
in the West who sought his promotion, and 
gained swift headway even against his most 
frantic protests. He looked upon the tranquil 
ineffectiveness of the Vice-President's office with 
undisguised horror. In the Convention in June 
his wishes were overruled and he was forced to 
accept the nomination. Having accepted, he put 
the full force of his energy and enthusiasm into 
the campaign that followed, touring the country 
from end to end. The Republican ticket was tri- 
umphantly elected and Roosevelt settled down 
In Washington, with what grace he could com- 
mand, to four years of dull inaction which he 
prophesied would leave him at their conclusion, 
at best, a professor of history in a second-rate 
college, until the end of his days. 

[28] 




IV 



N assassin's bullet, removing his chief 
from the field of action with sudden 
and terrible swiftness, brought Roose- 
velt unexpectedly into the very forefront of af- 
fairs. Six months after the second inauguration 
of President McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt be- 
came President of the United States. He retained 
the Cabinet of his predecessor and pledged him- 
self to carry out his predecessor's policies. But it 
was inevitable that his strong personality should 
immediately impress itself on the whole admin- 
istration. Friends and opponents alike recognized 
at once that a great new dynamic force was in 
control. His grasp of public questions, his wide 
range of interests, his understanding and love for 
all manner of men, his tireless energy, made him 
at once the center of public .attention and the 
most widely popular of American executives since 
Andrew Jackson. He was a forceful and persua- 
sive speaker, and again and again, when Congress 
blocked his measures, won the support of the 
people by direct appeals. He crossed and criss- 
crossed, the continent, meeting the American 
people face to face and laying his causes before 
them for their judgment. He had the gilt of 




Copyright, Underwood & Underwood Studios, New York 



Theodore Roosevelt 
1903 



making men of all sections feel that he was 
peculiarly an expression of their own dreams 
and aspirations. He was, in fact, at home in 
every part of the land, and through his Northern 
birth, his Southern ancestry, his residence in the 
West and his deep understanding of the Western 
point of view, was peculiarly a son of the whole 
country. 

His conduct of domestic as well as foreign 
affairs was fearless and vigorous. He saw clearly 
that the question of most vital importance before 
the country was the control and strict regulation 
of the great corporations. In the famous North- 
ern Securities' merger he presented a test case 
to the Supreme Court which ultimately opened 
the way for the prosecution of the other great 
corporations which had violated the Sherman 
Anti-trust Law. His fight against the conserva- 
tive forces of both parties on this question, and 
kindred matters of railroad regulation, was in- 
tensely bitter and extended throughout his period 
in office. 

His dealings with labor were equally far- 
sighted and firm. He favored combinations of 
labor as he favored combinations of capital, but 
stood as firmly against lawlessness on the part 
of laboring men as he stood against it on the 
part of capitalists. 

"At last," said one of the "labor men" at lunch- 
eon one day, "there is a hearing for us fellows." 

[31] 



"Yes," cried the President emphatically. "The 
White House door, while I am here, shall swing 
open as easily for the labor man as for the capi- 
talist, and no easier.'' 

He was able to settle the anthracite coal strike 
in October, 1902, because he understood the 
points of view of both sides and was known by 
both as a just man of solid convictions whom 
threats could not swerve from his determined 
course. 

His attitude in foreign affairs, as in domestic, 
was frank, clear-cut and firm, being based on 
the same principles which governed his personal 
relations with his fellowmen. He treated nations 
when they were bullies in the same direct man- 
ner he had used with certain "bad men" in 
Dakota. His vigorous handling of Germany, late 
in 1902, met a covert challenge of the Monroe 
Doctrine in a manner that left nothing to the 
Kaiser's imagination. His hint to England on 
the Alaska boundary question — "Arbitrate if 
you want to, but there is the map" — was equally 
unambiguous and fruitful of international good- 
will. He settled the century-old Panama ques- 
tion by swift and decisive action on the instant 
when such action was needed, and was digging 
the Canal before his opponents in Congress had 
recovered from their horror at his temerity. His 
reputation for integrity and candor, combined 
with an instant readiness to act, solved more 

[32] 



than one knotty international problem before it 
reached a crisis, and gave him power, when the 
governments of Europe found themselves impo- 
tent and afraid to intervene in the Russo-Japa- 
nese conflict, to thrust his vigorous personality 
between the contestants and by a liberal "knock- 
ing of heads right and left," literally to force 
peace. 

He found the government of the United States, 
when he took up the reins, in the position among 
world powers, of a new boy in school; he left it 
firmly established in the first rank, admired and 
feared, its favor eagerly sought after, its citizen- 
ship respected in the remotest corners of the 
globe. In domestic affairs his impress was no 
less remarkable. At a critical moment in the con- 
flict between capital and labor he was able to 
exercise the mediating influence which averted 
the deep bitterness which that conflict had en- 
gendered in other nations, and to guide both par- 
ties away from the extremes whose final meeting 
place is revolution. He fought the battle of de- 
mocracy against impending plutocracy; he in- 
sisted that the rights of the public to the natural 
resources of the country outweighed private 
rights, and fought men of all parties until his 
word prevailed and found expression in the con- 
servation movement; above all, he kindled men 
and women, and especially young men, to an 
ardor for public service such as men had not 



known before in times of peace. He trvimpeted 
the call of national and civic duty, and the con- 
science of the country awoke and responded. 



[34} 



T 



V 



{^Tf^HEODORE ROOSEVELT left the Presi- 
dency in March, 1909, and a month later 
sailed for East Africa. There for a year he 
hunted big game — lion and elephant, rhinoceros, 
giraffe, ostrich and hippopotamus, meetingstrange 
peoples and perilous adventures. He emerged 
from the jungle at Khartoum in April, 19 10, to 
be greeted by a cheer of welcome that echoed 
around the world. His journey down the Nile 
and through Europe was a triumphal progress 
extraordinary in its evidence of admiration and 
wonder. He made formal addresses before half 
a dozen learned bodies, stirring up a hornet's 
nest in Cairo by his denunciation of a recent 
political assassination, another in Rome by re- 
fusing to allow his freedom of action to be cir- 
cumscribed by the papal authorities, a third in 
London by criticizing England's government of 
Egypt. At Christiania he received the Nobel 
Prize, awarded to him the year previous for his 
efforts in bringing about the Peace of Ports- 
mouth; in Berlin he reviewed, at the Kaiser's 
side, the crack troops of the Empire. Altogether, 
it was a memorable journey. 

He returned to the United States to find the 

[35} 



Party, which he had left united and vigorous 
after its recent victory, disrupted by bitter fac- 
tional strife, and slipping rapidly toward disas- 
ter. In the struggle between the progressive and 
the reactionary elements he could not stand to 
one side in dignified neutrality. He espoused the 
progressive cause and in the campaign of 1910 
fought with all the energy that was in him for 
the overthrow of boss-rule in New York State. 
He was decisively beaten after a contest that 
was bitter in the extreme. His enemies shouted 
that he was politically dead. He withdrew to 
Sagamore Hill and his editorial work on the 
staff of the Outlook^ and, for the moment, let his 
foes rejoice. 

But the struggle into which he had thrown, 
with such seeming recklessness, the stake of his 
great reputation, had been scarcely checked by 
the mid-term defeat. He was urged to be a can- 
didate for President on the Republican ticket 
against President Taft, who was backed by the 
party machine and the so-called "stand-patters." 
He did not want to make the race, and it was 
against his own best judgment that he was per- 
suaded at last to enter the contest. Once in, 
however, he fought with his whole being. One 
state after another, in the primary campaign, 
pledged its delegates to him. But the party 
machine was in the hands of his enemies, and 
in the convention held in Chicago in June they 

[36} 



used it relentlessly and without scruple to effect 
his defeat. The progressives, refusing to vote, 
marched out of the convention hall, leaving a 
disgruntled majority to carry through its pro- 
gram of disaster. A new Progressive Party sprang 
into being overnight and in August, amid scenes 
of the wildest enthusiasm, mingled with a devo- 
tion to a high cause absent hitherto from politi- 
cal conventions, nominated Theodore Roosevelt 
for President. 

The ensuing campaign was fierce and rancor- 
ous. At the height of it Roosevelt was shot by a 
fanatic in Milwaukee as he was entering an auto- 
mobile on his way to a mass-meeting he was 
about to address. He insisted on making his 
speech, went to the hospital, and after two weeks 
was again on his feet, campaigning. In the three- 
cornered election in November he polled over 
four million votes, but was defeated by Wood- 
row Wilson, the Democratic candidate. Once 
more his enemies rejoiced and said that he was 
"done for." He took his defeat with the same 
good grace and humor with which he had taken 
victory in the past, returned to his editorial 
work, wrote his Autobiography, and accepted 
the popular verdict that he was out of politics. 

In the autumn of 19 13 he went to South 
America to address numerous learned bodies 
there and to make an exploring expedition into 
the jungles of Brazil, to which he had long 

[37] 



looked forward. His journey from capital to 
capital in South America was a repetition oi his 
triumphal progress through Europe. His plunge 
into the Brazilian wilderness, on the other hand, 
was infinitely more hazardous than the African 
trip. For months he and his expedition were 
completely out of touch with the outside world. 
He discovered a hitherto unknown river, vaguely 
indicated on existing maps as the River of 
Doubt, and at imminent risk of disaster explored 
the nine hundred miles of its course. The trip 
was indescribably arduous and full of peril; his 
life was constantly in danger in the treacherous 
rapids and along the fever-infested banks; sav- 
age Indians shot their poisonous arrows unseen 
out of the dark tangle. One after another, his 
canoes were crushed in the rapids; one after 
another his men sickened. Finally he himself 
was laid low with fever, and for forty-eight hours 
was deadly ill. He pleaded with his son Kermit, 
who was with him, and with the Brazilian of- 
ficers who had been assigned to his expedition 
by the government, to leave him behind and 
push on, in order that the whole expedition 
might not suffer the catastrophe which was 
always imminent, of death by starvation. His 
companions refused to leave him. By a great 
effort of will he raised himself from his sick-bed 
and plunged on with them from rapids to rapids, 
until at last, when disaster seemed inevitable, a 

U9I 



post on the river bank with the carved initials 
of some rubber trader, indicated that they were 
on the outskirts of civiHzation once more. For 
weeks thereafter Roosevelt lay tossing with fever 
on the bottom of the canoe as they drifted down 
the placid reaches of the river. The Brazilian 
government, in honor of his exploit, christened 
the river he had found the Rio Teodoro. 



[40} 



VI 



HE returned to his own country in May, 
1 914. Three months Later the World 
War broke out. Roosevelt saw at once 
that America could not remain untouched by it. 
He pleaded for preparedness; he pleaded for an 
international tribunal backed by force to execute 
its decrees. His pleas were met with a tumult of 
abuse. He did not let it swerve him from his 
course. When the Lusitania was sunk, he pleaded 
for instant action — not a declaration of war, but 
a trade embargo against Germany and open ports 
for the ships of the Allies. At the outbreak of the 
brief and inglorious war with Mexico he offered 
to raise a division of troops. His offer was re- 
fused. Meanwhile his demand for national pre- 
paredness began to stir the country to a sense 
of the gravity of its position. Domestic issues 
faded into the background; the questions which 
had split the Republican party in 191 2 were 
superseded by other questions, at the moment 
more vital, which served to re-unite the oppos- 
ing groups. In the national convention of the 
Progressive party he was nominated for Presi- 
dent; in the Republican party the feeling was 
widespread that he should be the Republican 

[41] 



candidate also. The bitterness engendered by 
the schism of 191 2, however, prevented his nomi- 
nation. Justice Hughes was named. Roosevelt 
forthwith refused the Progressive nomination 
and gave his support to the Republican candi- 
date. In the campaign that followed he pleaded 
that the slogans of the Democratic party, ''He 
kept us out of war' and ''Safety First!'' be met by 
the Republican party with the rallying cry of 
"Duty First!" But the counsels of timidity pre- 
vailed, and the Republican party, rejecting the 
opportunity to win or lose gloriously, went down 
to a defeat which had no solace in it. 

War with Germany came as he had prophesied 
it must inevitably come if the United States were 
to keep a shred of self-respect. He offered again 
to raise a division of troops. Men from all over 
the country volunteered their services, until 250,- 
000 men had recorded their desire to go under 
his leadership to France. Congress passed a bill 
authorizing the creation of two divisions of vol- 
unteers. The President refused his consent. 
Roosevelt, forbidden to fight in the field, grimly 
and in bitter disappointment, accepted the de- 
cision and flung himself whole-heartedly into 
the work that lay at hand. During the months 
that followed no good cause called to him in 
vain. Here and there over the country he spoke 
for the Liberty Loan Campaigns, for the Red 
Cross and other relief agencies; and in the pages 



of the Ka7isas City Star and the Metropolitan 
Magazine fought week after week for speed in 
mihtary preparation, for an honest facing of 
facts, for whole-hearted and unreserved partici- 
pation in the war by the side of the AlHes. He 
met complacency on the part of the Administra- 
tion with words of thunder drawn from Scrip- 
ture; he met what seemed to him the collusion 
of high officials with the sinister forces of the 
yellow press with sentences that stung and 
burned. His own personal life and public career 
had always equally been determined from day 
to day by certain clear and unalterable princi- 
ples, acting on the clearly discerned and unal- 
terable facts of experience. Rightly or wrongly 
he was convinced that the course of the Admin- 
istration was determined by theories yielding 
not to facts at all but only to political conve- 
nience. To him, therefore, the battle admitteciof 
no compromise. The issue was not political, but 
moral. It was a fight to the death; and to the 
death he fought it. 

The fever he had contracted in Brazil returned 
now and again. For weeks he travelled and made 
public addresses in spite of it. In February, 191 8, 
however, he became dangerously ill; was oper- 
ated upon; recovered; returned to his full ac- 
tivity, and was again laid low. His illness scarcely 
abated his ceaseless activity, and in nowise 
weakened the terrifying force of his fighting 

[43] 



spirit. In the autumn he was again forced to take 
to the hospital. He returned to Sagamore Hill 
in time to spend Christmas with his family. The 
inflammatory rheumatism which had caused him 
much pain began to give way. He seemed on the 
road to recovery. He made plans for a hunt after 
devil-fish in the spring. 

From his sick-bed he fought his battle for 
realism and candor, and directed the policy of 
the Republican Party, of which he was once 
more the recognized and undisputed leader. At 
midnight on January 5th, he wrote a memo- 
randum for the Chairman of the Republican 
National Committee. Four hours later, quietly 
in his sleep, with no other word, the man of 
many battles and much tumult slipped out of 
the company of living men. 

He was buried on a hillside in Oyster Bay; 
but with new potency his spirit cried to the 
hearts of his countrymen. 



C44] 



WITH THE TIDE 

Somewhere I read, in an old book whose name 

Is gone from me, I read that when the days 

Of a man are counted, and his business done. 

There comes up the shore at evening, with the tide. 

To the place where he sits, a boat — 

And in the boat, from the place where he sits, he sees. 

Dim in the dusk, dim and yet so familiar, 

The faces of his friends long dead; and knows, 

They come for him, brought in upon the tide. 

To take him where men go at set of day. 

Then rising, with his hands in theirs, he goes 

Between them his last steps, that are the first 

Of the new life — and with the ebb they pass. 

Their shaken sail grown small upon the moon. 

Often I thought of this, and pictured me 
How many a man who lives with throngs about him. 
Yet straining through the twilight for that boat 
Shall scarce make out one figure in the stern. 
And that so faint its features shall perplex him 
With doubtful memories— and his heart hang back. 
But others, rising as they see the sail 
Increase upon the sunset, hasten down. 
Hands out and eyes elated; for they see 
Head over head, crowding from bow to stern, 
Repeopling their long loneliness with smiles, 
The faces of their friends; and such go forth 
Content upon the ebb tide, with safe hearts. 

But never 

To worker summoned when his day was done 

Did mounting tide bring in such freight of friends 

As stole to you up the white wintry shingle 

That night while they that watched you thought you slept. 



Softly they came, and beached the boat, and gathered 
In the still cove under the icy stars. 
Your last-born, and the dear loves of your heart, 
And all men that have loved right more than ease. 
And honor above honors; all who gave 
Free-handed of their best tor other men. 
And thought their giving taking: they who knew 
Man's natural state is effort, up and up — ■ 
All these were there, so great a company 
Perchance you marveled, wondering what great ship 
Had brought that throng unnumbered to the cove 
Where the boys used to beach their light canoe 
After old happy picnics — 

But these, your friends and children, to whose hands 

Committed, in the silent night you rose 

And took your last faint steps — 

These led you down, O great American, 

Down to the Winter night and the white beach, 

And there you saw that the huge hull that waited 

Was not as are the boats of other dead, 

Frail craft for a brief passage; no, for this 

Was first of a long line of towering transports, 

Storm-worn and ocean-weary every one. 

The ships you launched, the ships you manned, the ships 

That now, returning from their sacred cjuest 

With the thrice-sacred burden of their dead. 

Lay waiting there to take you forth with them. 

Out with the ebb tide, on some farther quest. 

Edith Wharton 
Hyeres, January 7, 191 9. 

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